


Isn't It True

by balloonwhisk



Series: The Only Thing That Makes Sense [1]
Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, also some mention of mind manipulation because damien, short coda for 47 - Adam, some mention of Damien/Mark because I'm me and I need to squeeze that in everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 14:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13389540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balloonwhisk/pseuds/balloonwhisk
Summary: Rose and Mark have a short conversation after Caleb and Adam leave.





	Isn't It True

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to Tina for looking this over! Any remaining mistakes are my own, and there are probably many because this is the first time I'm writing fic ever. I just really wanted this to exist. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> The title is from the song by Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions. I don't know if Rose would actually listen to them, but to me they are a very Rose band.

Fifteen minutes after Adam and Caleb left in a flurry of hugs, Rose made her way to the front door of Sam's house. Dr. Bright had given her the number of a colleague she went to grad school with, who apparently knew of atypicals. Their research had ultimately taken them in a different direction and a different city but Dr. Bright assured her that they would be happy to squeeze her in for regular Skype sessions. Rose was skeptical as to how that would work when they couldn’t really feel her ability, but she had thanked Dr. Bright anyway and promised to give them a call.  
  
She was trying to find the pair of her glove that had mysteriously disappeared when she heard the stairs creak.  
  
"You heading out?" Mark asked.  
  
"Yeah, it's getting late and Sam and Dr. Bright seemed eager to look over some case files, so..."  
  
"Right." Mark cast a long look towards the living room where Sam's excited voice and Dr Bright's interested murmuring could be heard. He looked drained.  
  
"I'm really sorry!" Rose spluttered out in a rush "I really had _no idea_ . I never would have talked to him, let alone bring him back into your lives had I known! He seemed so scared, I just wanted to help him."  
  
"It's okay. I mean, it's not okay but you know what I mean." Mark was quiet as Rose located her missing glove behind the bench by the door and bent over to pick it up. "How has he been?"  
  
"Huh?" Rose stood up too quickly and blinked dazedly waiting for her head to stop spinning.  
  
"Damien. How... Has he been doing okay?"  
  
"I'm not really sure, to be honest. We've only met up a few times. I clearly didn't know him at all." Rose took a moment to secure her hat on her head. "He complains _a lot_. About everything. It can get a bit tedious honestly." She smiled faintly. “He’s funny though. Not on purpose most of the time, but it is pretty entertaining when he gets riled up. It was just nice to talk to someone I’m not related to about all this atypical stuff. For him too, I think. He seemed really lonely.”

“Yeah.” Mark scratched his face distractedly and tucked a piece of hair behind his ear. The gesture struck Rose as familiar somehow.

“Did you use to have long hair?”

“What?” Mark asked, bewildered.

“I didn’t realize it before but I’m positive I’ve seen you around before. But you had long hair, I think.”

“I highly doubt it but yeah, my hair was long until a few months ago. I _was_ in a coma for 2 years and after... Damien didn’t want me to be out and about during daylight hours so I didn’t exactly get a chance to visit the barber.”

“Oh!” Rose exclaimed suddenly “You were in his dream! That’s where I remember you from!”

“What?”

“When I dream walked into Damien’s head, you were there. Much thinner and with longer hair, but it was definitely you.”

“What- Uh… What was I doing?”

“I don’t exactly remember? Travelling through dreams is not as straightforward as Inception would have you believe.”

Mark chuckled. “I know. I’ve met a few dreamwalkers before.”

“At the AM?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’ve done it before?” Rose asked, excited.

“A bit.” Mark sat down on the stairs.

Rose decided not to push it for now, but made a note to come back to it in the future. “So you know that sometimes all you remember are a few details. And feelings.”

Mark nodded “So how was the inside of Damien’s head? Was Nine Inch Nails playing on repeat?”

Rose snorted out a laugh and sat down on the bench across from Mark. “You’d think so, he’s definitely ridiculous enough.” She sobered quickly, thinking back on all that she found out in the last hour. “But no. It was… quiet. Really quiet.”

Mark didn’t say anything, but gestured for her to continue.

“It felt like somebody had scooped out my insides. Like I was a cave in some forgotten land and I was being crushed, collapsing in on myself. Sorry, I know this is weird and it makes no sense.” Rose thought for a moment. “You were there too. Sometimes. You always brought the worst feeling with you though.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not sure exactly. It was huge and swooping. I think it was yearning.”

Mark didn’t say anything. He seemed lost inside his own head. Rose sighed.

“You know, this wasn’t what I was expecting at all when I was teasing him about drunk dialing his ex.”

Mark’s head whipped up. “What?”

“I was teasing him about being hungover in the afternoon. Obviously I had no idea-”

“He said I was his _ex_?” Mark asked incredulously.

“Not exactly… I kind of inferred it? I mean, who else would you call after downing half a bottle of bourbon in the morning?”

Mark seemed to be getting angrier by the second so Rose continued hurriedly “He did say it wasn’t like that.”

If anything that made him even more furious. Rose was confused. “ _Was_ it like that?”

“I don’t-” Mark half-shouted. Then he took a breath and collected himself. “It’s complicated.”

“But how?”

“His ability… I believe him when he says he doesn’t have it anymore so you don’t know what it feels like, but. He wanted me to trust him, to like him. So I did. The more deeply he wants something, the harder it is to resist, the harder it is to detect even. It just becomes your own feeling.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “By the time I realized what was going on it was already- So, I don’t know. I’ve got no fucking clue.”

“And you’re with Sam now.”

“Yeah.” A genuine smile spread over Mark’s face. The first one she’d seen. Rose couldn’t help but smile back.

“She seems really awesome.”

“She is. She’s amazing. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Rose thought of Emily and her smile dimmed a bit. Mark didn’t notice though. His eyes were following Sam’s cat -Einstein? Darwin?- as he not-so-stealthily made his way towards the living room, evidently deeming it safe now that the shouting had died down and the interlopers were gone. Rose stood up and cleared her throat.

“Anyway, I should get going. It’s starting to really come down out there and I don’t want to get stuck on the road, so.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Mark stood up as well. He looked more relaxed now, but his eyes were still troubled.

“It was really nice to meet you. All of you. Obviously I wish it had been under better circumstances, and that it didn’t also come with horrifying information about an organization I’ve been going to since I was a kid, but still. I hadn’t really met any atypicals aside from my family and I love them but I can’t talk about everything with them, you know?”

Mark snorted. “Oh yeah, I know.”

Rose let that go, this conversation didn’t need to be steered into more minefields. “You’re going to be okay, though? Talking to Damien?” Except that one, apparently.

“I’ll be fine. He doesn’t have his powers, he can’t do anything to me.”

Rose opened the front door, but turned to look at Mark. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I’ll be fine.” Mark repeated forcefully. “You stay away from him, okay? And take care of yourself.”

“Yeah, you too.” Rose gave an awkward wave, turned back around and left the house.

It really was coming down, the best thing to do would be to get home as soon as possible. Rose just needed to make one more stop.


End file.
